Style and concept

Jade Warrior's second of the four Island albums was dedicated to "the last whale". It had no recurring theme and was marked by a slightly jazzier feel than its predecessor, carrying a listener "through dawn-lit countryside full of birdsong, downriver to the ocean, and out among the great whales". Describing the band's musical vision at the time as "increasingly exotic", AllMusic found the Island albums "dreamlike, pushing a lighter jazz sound to the forefront", featuring "myriad percussive sounds but drum kits were rarely in evidence". "The band liked to create a soothing, ethereal feel, then shatter it with gongs and unexpectedly raucous electric guitar, usually from guest David Duhig, Tony's brother. The albums featured occasional celebrity guests such as Steve Winwood, but Jade Warrior had a style of its own", critic Casey Elston wrote.

History

Jon Field and Tony Duhig met in the early 1960s when working in a factory (both driving forklifts). Soon they found common musical interests (jazz, African and Latin American music), started playing instruments (Jon a set of congas, Tony a guitar, which he tuned unconventionally to openC), bought a four-track tape recorder each and started experimenting with multi-layered overdubs. According to Field, the process was not unlike "...trying to build a cathedral with the sort of things you'd find in your back yard," but still, as it turned out, formed a blueprint for Jade Warrior's music throughout their career.

?! (album)

?! is the third studio album by Italian rapper Caparezza, and his first release not to use the former stage name MikiMix.

Reception

Reviewing the album for Allmusic, Jason Birchmeier wrote, "The Italian rapper drops his rhymes with just as much fluency and dexterity as his American peers throughout the album. [...] Caparezza's mastery of the Italian dialect [makes] this album so stunning."

Warrior (arcade game)

Developed by Tim Skelly while working at Cinematronics, it was released under the Vectorbeam company name shortly before Cinematronics closed Vectorbeam down; they had purchased the company in 1978. The game featured two dueling knights rendered in monochromevector graphics and based on crude motion capture techniques. Due to the limitations of the hardware used, the processor could not render the characters and gaming environment at the same time and backgrounds were printed, with the characters projected on the top.

Controls

Originally Skelly planned for a two-player system with each player using two joysticks, one to control the movement of the player and the other controlling the player's weapon. However, financial constraints restricted the cabinet to one stick for each player and a button to switch between character and weapon modes. The sticks were produced in house and installed in cabinets in a way that players found unresponsive and difficult to use.

Rivalling 2000 AD, Warrior won 17 Eagle Awards during its short run. Because of thorough distribution and its format, it was one of the comic books in the British market that relied little upon distribution through then format-driven specialist shops and expensive subscriptions for its sales base.

History

Skinn, former editorial director of Marvel UK, launched Warrior in an effort to create a similar mix of stories to the one he had previously put together for Marvel's Hulk Weekly, but with greater creative freedom and a measure of creator ownership. The title was recycled from a short-lived reprint series Skinn had once published; he remarked that "Warrior seemed an obvious choice nobody else had picked up on—both times! It fit perfectly as a newsstand logo." He recruited many of the writers and artists he had previously worked with at Marvel, including Steve Moore, John Bolton, Steve Parkhouse and David Lloyd, adding established creators like Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons, and emerging young talent such as Alan Moore, Garry Leach, Alan Davis and Steve Dillon.